1:33

Jul 20 1:33pm – The OR/CVRR conference room is a small oddly-shaped room with five or six seats along one wall and one seat on the other. There wasn’t a table – it was just a sitting room. Small and intimate. It is cool and quiet – no drawings or paintings on the walls that I can recall but I might be wrong. We had been in this room before several times – this was, for us, usually not a good place. This was a room we didn’t like to be asked to meet with doctors in. It was adjacent to the main OR waiting room area where many of you had sat with us for hours during the previous month or so at WHC. The little conference room was right across from the main building elevators and across the hall from the CVRR entrance doors.

There we sat. Nick. Laurie. Lilly. Zak. Me. What now? The air conditioning purred. I don’t remember us saying much of anything to each other. I do remember thinking that this was it. Something had gone horribly wrong.

Dr. Shaw explained that Regina was now being sustained on her machines. She had a yeast infection in her blood. Her main organs were shutting down. She would not wake up. Dr. Shaw had talked to Dr. Bond and had agreed that it was time to bring the family together. Dr. Shaw had tears in his eyes as he said these things. He apologized multiple times. He said that they had done everything that they could have done. He was so sorry. So sorry.

Breathe.

Bean gurgled, wiggled.

I asked Dr. Shaw, “Can you hold on to her for a few minutes so we can visit her?” He said yes. He asked that we give him a few minutes and then he would come for us.